Table of Contents

Curvature Maps

Curvature maps within Knald can be generated either on the fly from the Normal & Height Maps provided by The Integrator, or from high to low polygonal meshes via The Baker. They come in two flavours: single and dual channel.

Single Channel Curvature

Single channel curvature is a monochrome texture that contains the curvature data & represents it using grayscale values.

Anything below 50% grey is concavity information.

Anything above 50% grey is convexity information.

Single channel curvature is probably the most widely used Curvature map as it contains all the concavity and convexity data within a single channel image.

While this makes for an extremely compact & convenient texture, it should be noted that the convenience comes at the expense of fidelity due to concavity and convexity information only being able to use 50% of the range available.

Dual Channel Curvature

Dual channel curvature is an RGB texture that contains curvature data within the red and green channels of the image. Dual channel curvature is only available from Curvature maps generated within The Baker.

The red channel contains concavity information.

The green channel contains convexity information.

The blue channel is currently unused.

Dual channel curvature has the advantage of having increased fidelity due to concavity and convexity data each being independently contained within their own channel & thus both are able to use the full range available.

Image Space & Baker Curvature Settings

The Curvature Group's Settings

Curvature Type: The toggle between single and dual channel curvature while using The Baker. This can be changed at any time without the need to re-bake.

Swizzle Channels: Swaps the order of the concavity and convexity channels. This can be changed at any time without the need to re-bake.

When using single channel curvature: The data is inverted causing concavity information to be represented by values above 50% grey & concavity information to be represented by values below 50% grey.

When using dual channel curvature: The channel data is flipped causing the red channel to contain convexity information & the green channel to contain concavity information.

Blur Amount: The amount of blur used on the image space Curvature Map. 1 is low blur, 5 is high blur.

Stabilization: The amount of image stabilization used on the image space Curvature Map.